This blog contains assorted news and commentary on the fundraising profession and philanthropy gathered by the AFP Fundraising Resource Center.
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As I did last time, I will list each of the top ten tips recommended by the judges of the Voluntary Sector Reporting Awards. I will then comment on them from the perspective of a communications professional. My focus is to cover new ground and not repeat my comments in the last post.

The wider philanthropy world, too, is discovering the differences between men and women. A half-dozen studies have been published in the last two years — the first systematic research into gender and philanthropy — revealing that women generally donate more, are more actively involved in the given charities, demand more proof of effectiveness and prefer somewhat different causes than men.

Beyond Competition, Running for a Cause - NYTimes.com: Last year, according to the New York Road Runners, organizers of the New York City Marathon, more than $34 million was raised for charity. Moreover, fund-raising experts expect that the vast majority of runners in this year’s race will still honor their commitments.

“I’m sure they’re disappointed, and there might be some who are annoyed,” said Michael Nilsen, spokesman for the Association of Fundraising Professionals in Arlington, Va. “But based on what we’ve seen in other situations where a charity event has been canceled because of weather or some other once-in-a-lifetime type circumstance, people generally don’t take it out on the charity.”

Mr. Nilsen said he would not be surprised to see “two-thirds, maybe more” of the charity marathoners meet their commitment to deliver the money they raised.

“Businesses that are owned or controlled by families are using philanthropy as part of a business strategy and aligning the family’s core values with the company’s,” Ms. Brill said. “It makes sense and can also be extremely beneficial to business objectives such as attracting and retaining great employees and improving the company’s reputation as a good corporate citizen with its customers, community and vendors and suppliers.”

What Nonprofits Can Learn from the Response Media Model - NPQ: esponse media has a bad rap, and most of it is deserved. The idea is to comb through search queries on the Web to see what people are looking for and then create a page that specifically answers that question. In a perfect world, this would mean that if enough people searched for “how much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?” and there was no good answer for that already, some really well-informed people at the Woodchuck Research Institute would be kind enough to write a Wikipedia article explaining the answer succinctly, and then we all move along with our day.

GT | Newsroom - Georgia Tech Posts Near Record Philanthropy: The Georgia Institute of Technology posted the second best year-to-year philanthropy results in the Institute’s history for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2012. Private gift income to the Institute and its associated foundations totaled $118.4 million, as reported to the Council for Aid to Education (CAE), which measures only gifts received, excluding pledges.

The School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research at the University of Kent is offering a Masters level module in Spring on 'Fundraising and Philanthropy' as a stand-alone course for people working in the local charity sector.

Donor-advised funds last year grew for the first time since 2007, the best year the funds had before the recession took hold, according to a study released today.

Using data from 652 organizations, the National Philanthropic Trust examined the performance of the funds, which allow people to set up charitable accounts, take an immediate tax deduction, and channel money to whatever charities they want whenever they want.

November 7520 Rate Settles to 1.0% | Planned Giving Design Center: For purposes of determining the present value of an annuity, an interest for life or a term of years, or a remainder or a reversionary interest, Revenue Ruling 2012-30 indicates the applicable federal rate under section 7520 for November 2012 is 1.0%; down 0.2% from the October rate of 1.2% and unchanged from the September rate of 1.0%.

Will Sandy Destroy Fundraising? - Association Bisnow (DC): Nonprofit Roundtable of Greater Washington president Chuck Bean says not to worry. He’s confident Americans will only dig deeper rather than divert their giving to hurricane relief. Non-hurricane-related non-profits, which start their big fundraising push during the three to four weeks after Thanksgiving, need to continue talking about their mission and what they do with donations to make sure people give the same amount or more. The end of the election today will also allow for more opportunities to capture the public’s attention.

However, John R. McGinley Jr., the attorney who spent six years working on the dissolution of St. Francis Hospital, said with revenues of $217, the cost of keeping Event Committee Pittsburgh exceeded the benefit of shelving the organization in case it might be needed again.

Mr. McGinley said there are hordes of zombie nonprofits (he called them "shell nonprofits," sort of like shell corporations) existing in name and incorporation, sitting on shelves in offices around the city but not doing anything.

"Operating small nonprofits can be very cost-intensive relative to the benefits," he said, adding that most are better off finding another nonprofit with a similar or the same mission and transferring their assets over, then dissolving.

Chris Brown is hoping to help others by starting a children’s charity. Looking to revamp his image and maybe even soften up the idea that he was convicted of assaulting woman, the artist will announce a new children’s charity called Symphonic Love to the public on Monday.

Her position as volunteer coordinator was created in October as part of the charity’s strategy to gird itself against the looming federal budget cuts, which threaten to hack $178,595 from its government funding.

A record number of individual donations by phone, text and online were accepted by the American Red Cross during the 8:00 p.m. - 12:00 a.m. time period beginning on Friday, November 2, 2012. The volume of website and phone traffic exceeded previous benefit telethons in support of the American Red Cross over the last five years.

Philanthropy Turned to Short-Term, Project Funding During Recession: We examined new data from 2004-2010 for the newly released (and revised) “The Philanthropic Landscape: The State of Multi-Year Funding” and found that reported multi-year grantmaking in 2009 fell 21 percent to $5.5 billion during a time when total grantmaking declined only by 13 percent. If we excluded the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the nation’s largest grantmaker, from the analysis, the drop becomes pronounced at more than 33 percent.

Let’s look at Yahoo’s homepage today, which features the donation page and tracks how much money has been raised. I believe this is fantastic and it’s something every major site should add, maybe including ours:

In all, 62 groups received $1,000 checks at a community breakfast at Founders Hall in Roswell. Three additional breakfasts are occurring across Atlanta this fall and 251 groups in all will receive the same gift.

SBA Loans For Nonprofit Operations - TheNonProfitTimes: If your nonprofit operates in any county that has been declared a major disaster area by President Barack Obama due to Hurricane Sandy, it might be eligible for low-interest loan from the Small Business Administration (SBA).